November 5th. One of the turning points in American history. Newvember. The day the greatest anime ever made graced our airwaves, starting with the 5th episode. I'm halfway certain they started with the fifth episode because otherwise viewers would be asking who this Captain Blue Junior in the opening was. They aired the other 3 episodes later on during its weekday block at the time except, as I detailed, episode 4. Because of this, there were some expo dub lines that were necessary.
Like I mentioned at the end of episode 4's breakdown, this episode has a fair amount of broadcast no-nos, but it's apparent that the people editing this one for TV weren't the same people 4Kids had. They actually work around things in very natural ways.
In this 5th episode that was the first we ever got, Joe goes to Captain Blue's favorite old western town, Blue Town, and meets his mainstay partner, previously Captain Blue's sidekick, Captain Blue Junior, who after being harassed by some bikers is stormed by Bianco Billy.
Let's get the big one out of the way first: signs. Remember all the signs that got edited in the last episode? Well, Blue Town is an old west town and those had bars. Can't have that in English, although the word "saloon" is allowed in one shot, even though that's a kind of bar.
No gun shops either.
And... Pornography?!
Why does Captain Blue's town have a porn shop? Did someone on the background team just throw that in without knowing what it meant in English? I'd change that even if this WEREN'T broadcast television! That's distracting!
Anyway, we'll get to the less obvious one starting with the very first scene.
Expo Speak: "Dude, where am I? I mean like I know I'm in movieland, but like what part?"
Again this was aired first so it had to establish he's in a movie land.
It's an interesting and arguably inconsistent thing about bombs in kid's television. You can HAVE things that explode, but I don't think you're allowed to refer to something as a bomb and I think there's a taboo on showing it blow up buildings (because terrorism or something). In this case the bomb is the wired dynamite type. If you watch one of the first trailers of the anime in English there's a line that's not in the final product where Joe says he's "messin' with the bomb." They likely had to redo it so as not to be too obvious.
There are a couple instances of this in other anime I can recall too. In Digimon: Data Squad, Thomas plants a miniature bomb on Kurata's headset, but in the English dub he calls it a "charge" (which can be a term used for a miniature bomb). Then there was the infamous episode where a giant bomb Digimon threw bombs all over the place and they had to change him into a giant fruit or else they weren't going to be allowed to air the episode.
In Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds the villain Lawton uses a dynamite bomb much like the one in this anime and simply says "know what this is?"
Even later on in this very episode the partner guy calls it an "explosive device." So you can have bombs, but there are some picky, specific regulations about how you go about having them in your show. I wish I could interview some of the people involved with these things to learn more.
Back to the subject at hand, following up with what I said about bombing buildings, the outer shot of the bomb exploding is cut.
Instead the English version re-uses a close-up of Joe's face and makes it fade to white to signify it's exploding in front of him. That works too.
The English version cuts to the opening after the partner is driven away in the ambulance. When it gets back he's standing in front of the sign for Blue Town. In the Japanese version there's a shot of Joe saying (I think) that it would've been cool having a partner and then he sees the sign. Specifically he says "aibou", which can be translated to a few different things, but "partner" is the most fitting in this context.
I think this was good to cut for a few reasons: time and flow. The opening in the English version acts as a break from his first misadventure immediately into his next one and gives the sense of time passing in between them, with Joe now being in a different part of movieland. In the Japanese version, Joe immediately walks up to an old-western looking sign that's apparently in the same ruined city he was previously in even though it looks like he's in a completely different movie now. Given the city is never seen again, he might as well be.
The first introduction shot of Blue Junior is cut in the English version because he's on top of a bar building. It introduces him with the following close-up instead.
In the Japanese version after the lead biker tells Junior he's a pain in his butt, he grabs said butt. Viewtiful Joe can get away with some butt-related stuff, but close-ups like that don't fly.
In the Japanese version, after the lead biker dismisses the brown stuff launched at him, he sniffs the stuff he just wiped off with his finger. The English version cuts the sniffing.
It also cuts the other bikers hacking and coughing at the stench.
See, in the Japanese version, Junior is catapulting cow pies at them, literally throwing shit around, which is not ok for kids TV. The English version kind of has the plausible deniability of being mud pies. In the English version the biker leader says they're mud pies after he brushes the brown stuff off his face (he doesn't specify that in Japanese), but then looks closer and says "there's alfalfa in this!" (In Japanese he just says "what is this"?) Even when this first aired I thought the implication was that it was cow poop because the alfalfa shows it came from a farm with animals that eat that, like cows. Junior does say you can use it as a "facial mask or a quick nutritious treat", but I figured that was a snyde insult, not saying it was mud. Then at the end of the episode Joe figuratively says "that's just a big alfalfa pie", so yeah. I feel like the ambiguity was on purpose.
Now we get to Bianco Billy from Jadow.
Expo dub: "Those are the dudes who took Silvia."
Again, this was the first episode aired. Most people wouldn't know that, even if they played the game. In the first game Jadow is only mentioned maybe twice by name.
There's some interesting things about Bianco Billy and his guns. Visually, the guns are unedited in English. They are not colored like in a 4Kids edit or changed to something not resembling a gun like you might see in something like The Batman. They are revolvers, albeit ones with funnel-shaped nozzles.
Their bullets are also not edited in English. One way to censor bullets is to make them glow.
Here though, they were already like that in the original. Some censorship editor breathed a sigh of relief. What had to be changed about the guns is their visibility onscreen and actually showing them fire. Specifically, close-up shots. The English version also changed the gunfire sound effects to lazer shots, but since they're glowing and make streaks of yellow light that's not out of place.
During the pan up shot of Billy's introduction, the Japanese version has two quick cut close-ups of his revolvers. The English version replaces those with a white flash, like it's for a sunlight-based dramatic effect.
When Billy is shooting at Junior's cow pie assault there's a half second shot of the guns after the first couple shots that are cut in the English version.
After that, Billy twirls his gun into the holster. In the Japanese version he stops it mid-twirl for a second before continuing to spin it into his holster, but in English that's cut and he just twirls it from start to finish. It's a pretty seamless cut. It's ok to have the gun if the spinning is obscuring it, I guess.
Then the townsfolk try throwing cacti at him, but he shoots those down too. The English version keeps a shot of Billy's hand right next to the holster, ready for a quick draw, but it cuts out a shot of the gun being lifted up. I kind of like that cut because taking time out in between showing he hasn't touched his gun yet and then shooting right after makes it look more like he's quick drawing like a champ. The Japanese version does what the English version did here later, which is left untouched.
After he shoots down the cacti, Billy poses for a moment while the pieces fall down and then twirls his guns back into the holsters. The English version cuts to the end of him posing and putting the guns away so it doesn't linger on him having them out.
When Joe comes in as Captain Blue, a close-up of one of Billy's bullets shredding his costume is cut, but in the shot after you can kind of see the costume starting to fall apart in the aftermath.
Billy actually whipping his guns out to take the shot isn't cut though, likely because it's at enough of a distance. Another close-up of the nozzles shooting is, however. It's kind of awkward how the Japanese version keeps dedicating shots to the nozzles shooting, to be honest. It's like it thinks the act of shooting is the best part. We just GOTTA have those glorious, glorious guns front and center!
Expo dub: "Dude I flew so fast I like totally shredded my disguise."
Have to explain that since it cut out the bullets tearing it. In the original it was probably a combination of both.
When Joe lands in the Japanese version he steps into a couple of cow pies, looks at his shoes and says "oh no!" In the English version they cut the part where he looks at his feet so instead he lands with a squishing sound and an awkward look on his face. What's weird about this one is that this part was used in in a commercial for the anime so clearly it should've been ok to keep in. It could be another time thing.
Once again a close-up shot of the guns firing is cut. There's also a shot of Billy stepping in with both guns firing in the Japanese version. The English version only shows a quick quarter second of the step-in from before Billy starts firing and then edits in some shot sounds as Joe readies his sick slow motion spin kick.
The entire sequence from then on is completely unedited in the English version, including the part where Billy shoots upward with his guns. Well, except for one more sign.
Because it damaged his boot. Heh.
Then, excluding some aforementioned signs, it's all the same in both versions, even the shot toward the end that clearly shows Billy with both of his guns in a close-up, but since he doesn't use them this time it was probably ok. The explosion from the bomb is also unedited, probably because the real problem the first time was that it was a building being bombed.
This is probably the most censored episode yet, but it's still not that much. It's mostly a lot of quick cuts and sign edits, which I would argue are more often than not for the better. Again it doesn't detract from anything in the original in terms of action or plot and this episode got me hooked back when I saw it on that historic day. I think Geneon handled getting around broadcasting standards well, certainly better than 4Kids, who cut out an entire sequence from Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds for the sake of not showing guns.
Hopefully next time episode 6 should be a little lighter in edits.
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